The next day, I woke late in the morning. I checked the clock near my pillow, rolled over…then bolted upright. By most people’s standards, I’d woken at a normal time. But my mind was wide awake as if I’d never drifted off at all, which was actually kind of frightening.
What reason did I have to panic?
Gazing up at the bright light visible through the curtains, I concluded that she probably wouldn’t be there if I left now—and immediately afterward, I was overcome with a surprisingly intense feeling of guilt, or perhaps unease. Cursing myself, I hugged my arms to my chest and curled into a ball.
I know what’ll happen if I get attached.
I could see it. I could remember. I closed my eyes.
Starting tomorrow, I’m quitting.
“I said I was quitting, but here I am, wide awake.”
Every summer vacation in elementary school, I would happily sleep in until my mother came to wake me—but now that I was in junior high, the heat seemed to cook me alive. No wonder I was overly sensitive all the time. My skin was raw.
As if to make up for yesterday’s failure, I stirred from shallow slumber at the very cusp of a quiet night’s end, as if my consciousness was in a race to beat the dawn. Don’t, I told myself, pressing a hand to my head. I said I’m quitting, remember? I flopped back onto the futon and closed my eyes, determined to sleep until the cicadas chirped. But my eyes felt abnormally heavy behind my eyelids, demanding to be freed with a persistence slightly different from genuine wakefulness.
She was a stranger I had only met twice—the sort of grown woman who, I suspected, would remain an enigma no matter how many conversations we were to have. And it wasn’t just the kimono. Her scent seemed to travel up my nose and fill my brain.
Part of me was resistant to the concept of going to see her every day. But what was I so opposed to? There was a distinct feeling of contempt that I just couldn’t identify. I skimmed the surface again and again, taking shots in the dark, but all I got in return was frustration. I was agonizing so hard, my body threatened to break out into a sweat. Deprived of relief, I scratched at my head with my eyes closed. Every dry strand of hair was like piano wire, slicing at my fingertips.
Normally, my mind was hung up on very different, more depressing things, but now I found myself thinking nonstop about this kimono woman. Ugh. Emotions lapped at my inner cheeks once again, and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Add in the humidity of early morning, and I was drowning in a misery for which there was likely only one escape: to go see her. Just a little to take the edge off.
God, I sound like a drug addict, I thought, chuckling softly. My eyes drifted open a crack…and the next thing I knew, I nearly jumped out of my skin. On the futon next to mine, my little sister was staring at me, wide awake.
“Huh…? Oh, did I wake you?”
Now that she was in elementary school, she had started sleeping on her own separate futon…mostly. Every now and then, she’d crawl under my blanket. Tonight she hadn’t, but in exchange, her little eyes were boring holes in me.
“Oneechan, are you going somewhere?”
“Huh?”
“You always go somewhere in the morning.”
I was mildly surprised that she’d noticed. “Oh, I just…go for a walk, that’s all.”
“Then I wanna go with you.”
“What?”
“I’m going, too!”
“Listen—”
“What’s the harm? Spend some time with her for a change.”
The sudden voice in the dark hallway nearly made my heart stop. Then the door opened, revealing my mother standing there with her arms folded.
“I was just leaving the bathroom when I heard voices, so I thought I’d eavesdrop.”
“Gee, thanks…”
“So, where exactly has my dear daughter been going this early in the morning? Is it a man? A rendezvous with a booooyfriend?”
“Don’t be stupid.” I turned away and closed my eyes to stop them from rolling.
“Were you just about to roll your eyes at me, young lady?”
“Shut up.”
“Hmph. Everyone can see right through you, y’know.” She laughed like it didn’t even faze her—but what irritated me most was the way she prodded at my sides. “Sheesh! You used to be such a cute kid, and now look at you.”
“Oh, I see. So I’m not cute anymore?”
“Nope! That’s one ugly mug.”
It was so frank and direct, I was rendered speechless. The blood in my face rushed and drained like the tide, and the temperature change made me shiver.
“Ooh, but you are kinda cute when you’re mad.”
The veins in my wrists boiled and frothed until my fingers twitched. “Just shut up already,” I grumbled, biting back an expletive.
I really, truly struggled to suppress the impulse to flip out. Staying calm drained my energy to the point that I felt like passing out on the spot. The whole world was so infuriating, I wanted to scream and claw at my face and scream some more. The only reason I didn’t was because my little sister was there beside me.
With fire still churning in my gut, I ignored my mother and headed for the front door. I didn’t want to go, but I wanted to stay here even less. My little sister toddled after me, and I didn’t have the energy to convince her not to come, so I retrieved her shoes from the rack along with my own.
“Safe travels!”
“…Khh…” All that left my lips was a tiny half-formed word, like a shred of cabbage.
With my baby sister in tow, I stepped out into a quiet town yet to wake. Now and then I felt my sister’s hand squirm in my grasp, tickling my palm.
“It’s gonna be a long walk, just so you know.”
“I like walking.”
“…Okay.” The fact that I had the good sense not to lash out at her was proof, I hoped, that I was a good sister.
And so we walked the same path I always took, except a lot slower. Around the time my palm started to sweat against hers, we arrived at the spiral bridge—and I summoned the resolve to cross a different sort of bridge if a certain someone happened to be there.
At the bottom, shrouded in the last vestiges of night’s shadow, the basketball court and bench…were both deserted. The contents of my heart spilled out into my chest, and now I didn’t know where I was supposed to put the empty box.
“So you were playing basketball!”
I walked her over to the hoop, where she hopped up and down like she was trying to reach it. Her ponytail bounced with the motions, and I felt my hardening anger begin to crumble at the surface. What kind of game could we possibly play with just two of us and a basketball? Even I wasn’t so self-centered as to trounce my baby sister in a serious competition.
“…Hmm.” I lifted her into the air.
“Wheeeee!”
Once she was at the right height, I put the ball into her tiny little hands. “Can you bounce it?”
“Ooh, okay!”
At my prompting, she threw the ball to the ground, and when it bounced back up, I guided it back into her hands. Each time she slapped it down, it shot up a lot higher than I was expecting, and I realized I had been underestimating her strength. And so we chased after the ball while I helped her dribble.
The weight in my arms helped drive home what I had witnessed in her bounces: she was getting bigger. In the beginning I carried her all over the court, but over time I started to lose my breath. Since no one else was around, I panted and wheezed without restraint—that is, until I suddenly felt a gaze during our game. I looked over my shoulder, ignoring the sweat that rolled from my forehead into the corners of my eyes, and saw Kimono Lady sitting on the bench, smiling cheerfully like before.
“When did you get here…?”
“Just now.”
She rose to her feet and walked over. In my arms, my sister clung to me cautiously. The footsteps, slightly different from the sound of shoes, made a beeline straight for us.
“Good morning. Is this your…sister?” Kimono Lady smiled down at her as she shyly shrank into herself. “Just old enough to be at her maximum cuteness, I see.”
“Oneechan, who is she?” my sister asked in a tiny voice.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of an answer to that myself. “She’s…my friend,” I replied, choosing a simple lie over the complicated truth.
“Your big sister is teaching me how to play basketball,” Kimono Lady chimed in, crouching down to my sister’s eye level. “I don’t have any candy for you, but you can have this if you like.” She pulled a pouch from her kimono sleeve and held it out.
“What’s that?”
“Mung beans. I feed them to the pigeons.”
“…Is that really all you have?”
“Ha ha ha ha!” It was a jovial laugh, the sound bouncing high overhead.
“But there’s no pigeons here…” My sister glanced all around the court.
“If you choose to feed them, they’ll come back. It’s not a choice to make lightly.”
Then why did you give her the bag? She clutched it in her little hands, looking confused.
“See, whenever there are no pigeons around, I do this.”
She untied the pouch strings, grabbed a dried bean, and put it in her mouth. A pleasant crunch rang out from behind her lips. My sister stared in wide-eyed shock, then followed suit by putting a bean in her own mouth.